Billy Joel A Classic Case At 50
Lili2
JOEL A CLASSIC CASE AT 50
By KIERAN CROWLEY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
It's a brave new millennium for Piano Man Billy Joel, who at age 50 is
reinventing himself as an artist and as a person - with a new life, new music,
new love and new home.
The lifetime Long Islander is no longer touring or writing the hip,
introspective song lyrics that made him famous and has all but retired as a pop
superstar.
He's still the Piano Man - but he's gone longhair.
Joel's smash New Year's Eve 2000 concert at Madison Square Garden - out this
week as a live album - essentially was a fare-
well to 25 years of his rock music.
Joel, who says he was "seduced by rock 'n' roll" as a teen, is fulfilling his
childhood "dream" of being a classical composer. He's writing for the piano in
a style reminiscent of mid-19th century composers such as Frederic Chopin and
Franz Liszt.
The five-time Grammy winner hopes to release his first album of neo-classical
music later this year - featuring a classical pianist at the keyboard.
"Actually, everything's new for me right now," Joel told The Post.
Shortly after his New Year's concert, he broke up with his girlfriend of five
years, painter Carolyn Beegan.
He sold his oceanfront "Middlesea" estate - his home for 15 years - to comedian
Jerry Seinfeld and moved out of the Hamptons, and away from ex-wife Christie
Brinkley.
He's now back at his old stomping grounds "down island" on the Gold Coast of
Long Island's North Shore.
And, for the past month, he's had a new love - Trish Bergin, a stunning
29-year-old TV reporter and news anchor for Long Island's News 12.
"I'm in a new time of my life, I'm in a new social situation, I'm doing a new
kind of music, I've stopped touring."
Joel is living temporarily in "an old, new place," a rented house on the North
Shore, where he'll remain while he househunts for a waterfront "Piano Mansion."
What triggered all the changes? A mid-life crisis? Depression over his split
with Brinkley? Some other traumatic event?
No such thing, Joel insists.
"If you are not re-inventing yourself, then you are on the edge of decrepitude.
You begin to fossilize if you do not renew," he said.
But he acknowledges age played a role:
"I've had a lot of seasons in the major leagues. I'm just not the same athlete
I used to be and I can't stay in the lineup. I don't say that with any regret
or sadness - it's natural. We always knew it was a young man's gig."
Joel said he's dropped the lyrics from his new music because "I just don't feel
like being so damned literal anymore.
"It's extremely liberating because I don't really have to paint a mustache on
my own painting now," he laughed.
"To me, the music was always the message in the first place. I've broken away
from the tyranny of the lyric."
"I just let the music take me wherever it's going to go. It's always a voyage
of discovery. I'm having a blast doing it, I'm really enjoying myself," he
said.
"I don't know if this stuff is going to be commercially viable or critically
accepted. Frankly, I don't give a damn. I'm just doing it for me, which is the
same way I wrote pop music ... I'm just doing it to keep myself amused."
Joel's childhood piano teacher, Morton Estrin of Hicksville, was not surprised
to hear that the pop star had returned to the type of music he taught him in
grammar school.
"He was a very, very talented kid but the genius was lurking there but didn't
yet appear at that early age," said Estrin, who has heard some of Joel's new
music.
"It was very good," said Estrin. "He's very creative."
Professor Roy Rotheim, chairman of the business and economics department at
upstate Skidmore College, a boyhood friend of Joel's and also a former Estrin
student, is also not surprised the singer is re-creating himself and returning
to his classical roots.
"It's not surprising that he's going back to classical music - that was his
first blood type," laughed Rotheim.
Joel's personal resiliency is also a lifelong trait, he said.
"He learned to be adaptable and to move with the punches at an early age. When
you reach the age of fifty, you face your own mortality and when you do, you go
back to what's really important to you," Rotheim said.
Joel says he abandoned the Hamptons because of overcrowding and the change in
its once-rural atmosphere - but he vows to remain active in East End social
causes, particularly the plight of the baymen whose livelihood is threatened by
pollution and the growth of recreational fishing.
"I like it [in the Hamptons], but it's more and more become a resort area,"
Joel said. "It used to be a place for farmers and fishermen and local people,
but little by little the traditional community is pretty much moving away.
"The nature of the place is changing."
Joel began dating the recently divorced Bergin early this month - with a little
push from his ex, Brinkley.
Joel, who has known and been interviewed by Bergin a number of times over the
past four years, said, "I think I had mentioned to Christie that I thought she
was an attractive woman."
In February, he said, "Christie called me up and said, ‘Did you know she's
not wearing a wedding ring?' And I hadn't noticed that ...
"She actually pointed out, ‘Guess who's getting a divorce?'
"She a nice lady," Joel said of blonde, blue-eyed Bergin. "We always hit it off
professionally. I always thought she was attractive, but she was a married
woman."
The unattached troubador said he asked Brinkley and her architect husband,
Peter Cook, to contact Bergin to find out if she would be interested in dating
him.
Bergin's message was Joel is a friend and could call, but she wasn't ready to
go out with him.
So he phoned and told her, "I'm not going to ask you out but if there's
anything you need, please just know that you have a friend in me."
Bergin said she thought that was "sweet" and told him "maybe we'll have dinner
in the spring."
After a couple of disastrous blind dates with other guys, Bergin said, she and
Joel had that "dinner in the spring" - and they began seeing each other. Soon
after, bouquets of flowers began arriving regularly in the News 12 newsroom -
for Bergin from guess who.
Two weeks ago, the couple took their relationship public, with Bergin
accompanying Joel and his daughter, Alexa, to Sting's Rainforest Foundation
Benefit at Carnegie Hall.
"We get along quite well," confided Joel.
"We've only been dating a short amount of time but, like I said, we've known
each other for a long time."
He was reluctant to say more about Bergin.
"I have a hard time talking about it. Every time I talk too much about any kind
of relationship I'm in, it puts a hex on it."
Bergin, who was equally uncomfortable talking about her new love, did offer
that "he's very funny, very intelligent, very talented, and a very romantic
man."
"We have a really good time together, but it's like a wait-and-see," she said.
"We're still getting to know each other, still learning a lot about each
other."
"He makes me laugh and I'm very happy," she said.
She added that he's "a great father" and she's "crazy about" daughter Alexa.
Bergin noted that ever since her relationship with Joel became public, people
have been urging her to encourage him to return to writing rock hits.
"I miss his creating new rock 'n' roll music, but if he's happy with writing
classical music, it's equally as beautiful," she said.
"Some of these pieces he's working on are magnificent. Wait 'til you hear it.
People are just going to be amazed."
But there still may be some Joel rock 'n' roll in the future.
Joel says 14-year-old Alexa has a lovely singing voice and is learning the
piano.
"She likes old rock 'n' roll, she likes a lot of new stuff. She knows a lot
more about what's going on in pop music than I do.
"She's a very good musician," he beamed. "She could be better than me if she
practiced more."
mellster
Lili2 <li...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000430054729...@ng-ff1.aol.com...
> NY Post
>
>
> It's a brave new millennium for Piano Man Billy Joel, who at age 50 is
> reinventing himself as an artist and as a person - with a new life, new
music,
> new love and new home.
> The lifetime Long Islander is no longer touring or writing the hip,
> introspective song lyrics that made him famous and has all but retired as
a pop
> superstar.
>
> He's still the Piano Man - but he's gone longhair.
>
> Joel's smash New Year's Eve 2000 concert at Madison Square Garden - out
this
> week as a live album - essentially was a fare-
>
> well to 25 years of his rock music.
>
> Joel, who says he was "seduced by rock 'n' roll" as a teen, is fulfilling
his
> childhood "dream" of being a classical composer. He's writing for the
piano in
> a style reminiscent of mid-19th century composers such as Frederic Chopin
and
> Franz Liszt.
>
> The five-time Grammy winner hopes to release his first album of
neo-classical
> music later this year - featuring a classical pianist at the keyboard.
I'd read this about him some time ago, I believe it was a piece in
"Musician" magazine, where Joel was just absolutely slagging the "rock music
machine", saying he'd never perform any of his hits again, the industry was
really screwing musicians, and he wasn't going to be a party to that any
more, et.al. He brought out the ire of a lot of its readers, too, generating
loads of mail to the magazine accusing him of "biting the hand that fed him
all these years". Glad to see he's been portrayed as a little calmer about
the whole thing these days.
I'm certainly looking forward to hearing it, especially sans lyrics.
>
> But there still may be some Joel rock 'n' roll in the future.
>
> Joel says 14-year-old Alexa has a lovely singing voice and is learning the
> piano.
>
> "She likes old rock 'n' roll, she likes a lot of new stuff. She knows a
lot
> more about what's going on in pop music than I do.
>
> "She's a very good musician," he beamed. "She could be better than me if
she
> practiced more."
Hope he's not gonna be one of those pushy "stage parents" <g>
mellster
--
asgtpr #131-official keeper of useless music trivia